Paralympic Torch Relay reaches Vancouver

Wednesday was officially a day off for me, and I was pleased that it coincided with the Paralympic Torch Relay's arrival in Vancouver. This torch relay is different from the Olympic one in that it is not a continuous relay but is more community based. It started in Ottawa on 3rd March with a ceremony that involved torchbearers representing each of Canada's provinces and territories. Unlike the Olympic flame, the Paralympic flame has no 'ancestral home'. On each day of the 2010 relay, the flame is lit by representatives of the First Nation on whose territory the celebration is taking place. Today the flame was lit by elders of the Tsleil-Waututh Nation, and its first stop in Vancouver was a local community park.
Although the Paralympic Torch Relay lacks the history and continuity of the Olympic version, it felt like a great celebration of triumph over adversity and the role that sport can play in this. There were 22 torchbearers who took it in turns to run, walk or be pushed around a 400m circuit of the park. People with a wide variety of disabilities were included, and each had a different story to tell. It was also a community celebration, where disabled and able-bodied people, young and old, mingled together in a relaxed and happy way that I have rarely experienced before. I ended up talking with several people during the event, both local people from the community and also disabled athletes who'd come to join in the celebration from slightly further afield, including a Paralympic Gold medallist from Atlanta in 1996 who was so pleased that the Paralympics had come to her city.
After this uplifting celebration of the human spirit, I headed into the centre of Vancouver. Here, among other things, I visited the Olympic and Paralympic countdown clocks (the former having already counted down to zero), and the Olympic Cauldron on the waterfront near Canada Place. This, of course, is currently unlit but a burning flame will soon be shining out from it again, once the Opening Ceremony for this Paralympic Games has taken place.